SMX Live: You&A With Matt Cutts (2012)

Below is live coverage of the You&A With Matt Cutts panel from the SMX Advanced conference.

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4:02:29 PMBarry Schwartz:They start off by showing this video http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/020542.html

4:02:33 PMBarry Schwartz:Really funny

4:03:04 PMBarry Schwartz:

4:03:12 PMBarry Schwartz:The stage

4:05:05 PMBarry Schwartz:

4:05:20 PMBarry Schwartz:

4:06:09 PMBarry Schwartz:Danny lost an experimental phone

4:06:21 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt has the Google Glasses on them

4:06:29 PMBarry Schwartz:so does danny

4:06:43 PMBarry Schwartz:

4:06:46 PMBarry Schwartz:Early prototypes

4:07:00 PMBarry Schwartz:

4:07:07 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt has an app that lets him see link buyers

4:07:19 PMBarry Schwartz:If you see, they tape android phones to the huge glasses

4:07:47 PMBarry Schwartz:What is going on with Penguin?

4:08:40 PMBarry Schwartz:Google says this is not really a penalty

4:09:04 PMBarry Schwartz:Panda is between web spam and low quality

4:09:22 PMBarry Schwartz:Penguin was for the stuff Panda did not catch

4:09:44 PMBarry Schwartz:Penguin was designed to tackle web spam, it does demote web results, but it is not a penalty because it wasn't manual

4:09:59 PMBarry Schwartz:There is no whitelist for it, like Panda

4:10:08 PMBarry Schwartz:This is now one new signal as part of Google's 200+ signals

4:10:44 PMBarry Schwartz:Q) I always thought a penalty was algorithmic or manual, so going forward, should we consider penalties to only be manual?

4:11:18 PMBarry Schwartz:A) Yea, that is pretty much the lingo we use in Google. We don't use "penalty" anymore, we use "manual action" vs an algorithmic thing...

4:11:30 PMBarry Schwartz:Penalty is you got a manual slap

4:12:39 PMBarry Schwartz:Google has gotten more transparent about what they do on the manual side. Ifyou get a manual action on your site, you likely will hear about it (99%) via Google Webmaster Tools messages

4:13:59 PMBarry Schwartz:They did a penguin update may 25th

4:14:40 PMBarry Schwartz:Danny brings up the WordPress (WPMU) theme site that was hit by Penguin and Matt said they made a nice change

4:15:02 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt said they did recover because of the algo update and what they cleaned up.

4:15:09 PMBarry Schwartz:Danny brings up negative SEO...

4:15:22 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt said it is interesting this comes up around Penguin....

4:16:02 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt said it is interesting to see the reaction about it because negative SEO has been around a long time. And Google has changed the words they've used in their guidelines about this.

4:16:13 PMBarry Schwartz:It is possible for people to do things to sites, like steal domains...

4:16:35 PMBarry Schwartz:Any time Google thinks about an algo they try to make sure there are not false positives. Even with Penguin they worked hard on this.

4:17:23 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt said, people ask for a way to mark which links to remove. And Google will work on that in the next few months! See http://www.seroundtable.com/google-block-links-15190.html (knew it)

4:18:07 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt said people sell links and despite us not counting it, they are penalizing it because they are profiting off of it and they want people to know, this particular link scheme is a waste of time and money.

4:18:20 PMBarry Schwartz:Danny, do those unnatural link messages mean those are a manual penalty?

4:18:46 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt, yes - that is the differentiator... algo wouldn't send out a notification

4:18:58 PMAaron Friedman:I am glad you were right :-)

4:19:52 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt, said of the 700,000 messages sent out, the largest category was pure black hat spam, then black hat but unnatural links was a small part.

4:20:05 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt said Google is completely transparent

4:20:37 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt, typically if you get a notification you will see a downgrade in rankings.

4:20:45 PMBarry Schwartz:Danny, anything new on paid links?

4:21:10 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt, always working on improving our tools and how we can spot different methods for spotting thngs like paid links, blog networks and link buying...

4:21:44 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt said, you might think you are very careful but the person on the other side wont be as careful. There are almost always footprints.

4:22:04 PMBarry Schwartz:Google is enforcing it more and more recently

4:22:26 PMBarry Schwartz:Danny, people are saying, everyone else is doing paid links so got to do it...

4:22:37 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt said, if everyone is jumping off the bridge, then...

4:22:57 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt, most SEOs say SEO is much harder now than it was back in 2004. And it keeps getting harder.

4:23:11 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt was not happy how they handled spam back in 2004 and now he is much happier

4:23:48 PMBarry Schwartz:Danny, affiliate links, should they be nofollowed?

4:24:08 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt, we handle these well. But even though we handle them fine, if you are worried, do a nofollow.

4:24:21 PMBarry Schwartz:Danny, when you launched in Google, links were votes...

4:24:34 PMBarry Schwartz:That has changed? it is the "democracy of the web?"

4:26:17 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt, Douglas Adam said Space is Big.... the fact is the web is like that. Everyone in this room, 235TB of data, YouTube gets 72 hours of video upload any minute. There is more data being generated on the web anywhere else. The fact is, links are not dying because ifyou look at the actual percentage of nofollowed links on the web it is less than a percent or so.

4:27:00 PMBarry Schwartz:Danny: 30 day challenges are your thing, like I am going to use Bing for 30 days or so.

4:27:13 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt said, I try to do good habits (joking)

4:27:45 PMBarry Schwartz:Danny, i'd like to see you or your team, and spend 30 days building links for a small little business and see how it is.

4:28:25 PMBarry Schwartz:Danny, basically to put their shoes on your feet and then give them your shoes so they can see what Googlers feel. B/c their is a disconnect.

4:28:32 PMBarry Schwartz:So do that as a disconnect.

4:28:42 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt, that is one of the reasons I started a blog.

4:29:00 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt, that is why many of the people on his team have small non biz related web sites.

4:29:19 PMBarry Schwartz:Danny, what is up with the war on SEOs?

4:29:27 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt, it is a war on spam, not SEOs

4:30:07 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt, how do I look real, how do I have real links, look natural, etc... that is what people are talking about.

4:30:12 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt, just be real!

4:30:46 PMBarry Schwartz:Danny, you guys consider bounce rate off a search result to the site?

4:31:25 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt, we do not use Google Analytics in their rankings. But bounce rate from the search results is noisy. There are redirects, spam, etc.

4:31:56 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt, when the Google Toolbar had the happy/sad face. 75% were happy face and you saw happy face rings.

4:32:17 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt, bounce rate doesn't measure quick answers you get. You get the answer and leave, so it isn't a good metric for Google to use.

4:33:14 PMBarry Schwartz:

4:35:13 PMBarry Schwartz:Q) I asked if there was an update (as a joke)

4:35:33 PMBarry Schwartz:A) Matt said, barry emails me once a week asking if there was an update. Yea, no update but it was funny.

4:37:02 PMBarry Schwartz:Q) Is 10% still [not provided]?

4:37:40 PMBarry Schwartz:A) The trend continues to get larger and places like Firefox are starting to adopt SSL search also. That puts marketers at a disadvantage but we need to put users first.

4:37:58 PMBarry Schwartz:A) So they released more data to make up for it in Google Webmaster Tools

4:39:00 PMBarry Schwartz:Side note, they threw a penguin at me - so I am keeping it

4:39:53 PMBarry Schwartz:Q) Just make it happen in Google Analytics

4:40:03 PMBarry Schwartz:A) Analytics has a lot more machines and Webmaster Tools does not.

4:40:15 PMBarry Schwartz:Q) Where is the block site feature and then it goes away and comes back and goes away

4:40:38 PMBarry Schwartz:

4:41:00 PMBarry Schwartz:A) You can block sites with Google extension in chrome and they are bringing it back into the SERPs, there is a bug

4:41:12 PMBarry Schwartz:A) They did use that data for Panda

4:41:37 PMBarry Schwartz:Q) What about the sites linked to WordPress, why didn't they get hit by Penguin

4:41:57 PMBarry Schwartz:A) WordPress sites linking to WordPress are much more reputable in general compared to those WPMU

4:42:05 PMBarry Schwartz:Q) Why isn't AdWords SSL secure?

4:42:53 PMBarry Schwartz:A) I wouldn't mind revisiting it personally. But because AdWords customers would do exact matches only and their keyword lists would swell. So a much larger matching. There is a logistical reason for it he said.

4:43:23 PMBarry Schwartz:Q) If you submit a warning for unnatural links do you submit a reconsideration request?

4:47:09 PMBarry Schwartz:A) Why can't I get rich snippets people asked him and now people ask why do these other people have rich snippets, they are stinky... Now there are hacked sites abuse rich snippets. so they made some algo changes and they are getting harsher with that and if you abuse them, they may never let you use it anymore, etc

4:47:49 PMBarry Schwartz:A) We got a unnatural link warning, the SEO company is no longer in business

4:48:52 PMBarry Schwartz:A) Matt, we want to see a real effort in that you remove those links. We want to see effort. We look at a random sample to see if those links are removed or not. If you remove 90% or so, you are in better shape. We understand it is difficult and we are talking to the webmaster tools to add a disavow link feature.

4:49:26 PMBarry Schwartz:Danny said, make sacrificial links so you can take them down whenever you get a message to show good will.

4:50:06 PMBarry Schwartz:Q) if you can't get rid of the bad links, can you get rid of the page itself?

4:50:26 PMBarry Schwartz:A) You can do that if you don't need the page. It shows effort, people even scanned in images of letters they sent to people to remove links.

4:50:42 PMBarry Schwartz:Q) What percent of web spam reports do you take action on?

4:51:17 PMBarry Schwartz:A) We have a good list of leads (spam sites) ourselves. We have shut down tens or hundreds of thousand of these sites. So we have to take into account one spam report vs what they have.

4:53:44 PMBarry Schwartz:Google +1s data has to compete with the other signals just like any other signal. Just to +1 by itself won't affect its ranking.

4:55:06 PMBarry Schwartz:Danny, badgering Matt on +1s and how much Google is pushing it

4:55:48 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt, I am taking the opposite stance and don't use Google+ for a purpose of ranking. But he is careful with his words cause he can't say don't use it and he can't say use it.

4:56:35 PMBarry Schwartz:A) Panda was named after a lead engineer... The engineer that did it was asked to named it and he picked Penguin.

4:56:50 PMBarry Schwartz:Q) If you were hit by Penguin and Panda, should I just give up?

4:57:08 PMBarry Schwartz:A) Sometimes, but both are algorithmic and if you change the site and your signals, then you can come back.

4:58:07 PMBarry Schwartz:Q) Paid inclusion...

4:58:35 PMBarry Schwartz:Q) is it coming to web search? you guys said it is never coming... and now...

4:59:22 PMBarry Schwartz:A) It is disclosed, it is a separate box. It is about disclosure. Googles' web rankings are as pure as they were 10 years ago. We have lots of things around it.

5:00:35 PMBarry Schwartz:Q) I do a search query on your name on your name and people are really really mean to you... Do you just shrug it off.

5:01:38 PMBarry Schwartz:A) Well... I have a lot of people yell at me over the years, I've had time to develop a thick skin. You want to be apathetic. And we try to listen to the criticism within the hate of some of those emails.

5:02:53 PMBarry Schwartz:Matt said, it is funny to see people on black hat forums saying I am going to do X,Y Z and then it doesnt work and they say "it is not fair."

5:03:03 PMBarry Schwartz:Q) What is cool that you like in search now?

5:04:09 PMBarry Schwartz:A) Stuff I can't tell you about... But I do like knowledge graph... telling people you are spamming is nice....